


it started out with a kiss (how did it end up like this)

by pickwicklingpapers



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, complete apology fic, i love delphine and her plotlines and i'm not even ashamed of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-14 00:21:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5722567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pickwicklingpapers/pseuds/pickwicklingpapers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her happiness is second on the list. Her safety is first and, to be honest, she'll be able to find happiness anywhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it started out with a kiss (how did it end up like this)

**Author's Note:**

> partly inspired by the 'person a is dying so they call person b and act perfectly normal one last time' au that is basically the scene outside bubbles but also the fact that there seems to be a lot of hate for delphine and also her plot and the way she went but for me it was completely and utterly her and i don't really understand any of it idk.
> 
> also second person?? this was not planned. i hate second person.

 It starts with a phone call. You've worked with Leekie for over a year now - slowly integrating yourself into DYAD and its affiliated shadow groups. You're on the edge of the limelight, and whilst you might not agree with neolutionism, you can't deny that it has its merits. Professor Leekie is a very convincing teacher. 

You learnt love at your mother's knee. It got sucked up at boarding school, hidden away inside the nooks and crannies that decorate your heart. Now you have a degree in immunology and an american is teaching you how to be a spy. You leave your little research group with a cold heart and pockets full of tricks, step into the lab and fake a breakup. It works. Of course it works. You're the best when you put your mind to it. You don't know how to be anything else. 

It starts with her accent, butchering the vowels of your mother tongue. You resolve to teach her french, a language that will roll off your tongue if only you speak it with the correct reverence. You treat her with that reverence but you don't feel guilty about your mission - how can something that lets you be close to her be a bad thing? You meet her in the library and think that this is what a film must feel like. You take her to see Leekie and watch as she steals wine and promises to get you high. You'll do it. For her, you'll do anything. All the while, you're sleeping with Aldous but that's another mission. And anything that keeps her safe is worth it. (Later on, you realise that you're wrong and change your reasoning - if it saves her, then nothing can ever be wrong, can ever be too far. Not if she lives. She doesn't have to like it, she doesn't have to agree. She just has to survive.)

It starts with a kiss. It's soft and loving and you feel so confused but so right. So, so right. You resolve to be the best at loving her. Part of you feels guilty as you search her apartment- but only because you think they might throw you out of the system for this. You don't regret anything else, because if they can't find what she knows, they'll kill her. You can't let that happen. The information that you find is delivered safely to Aldous and Cosima will never have to know that you didn't just go back to sleep. You marvel that she was brave enough to leave a relative stranger in her bed whilst she went out in her underwear and a coat, because don't they always warn you that things like this might happen? You don't know what strangers in your house are doing. But then again - Cosima is the type to make snap judgements without really thinking. She also holds a grudge like no one you've ever seen before. Once you fall from grace, you may as well just cut your wings because you'll never reach heaven again. 

You want to protect Cosima, but you're above hurting an innocent girl. You know what her existence means. So you never tell them about Kira. You just want to save Cosima. You remain all business when at the lab - her happiness is second on the list. Her safety is first and, to be honest, she'll be able to find happiness anywhere. You could only ever have it with her - she's the first person since Maman that you feel completely at home with - but your needs are so far down the list that they're practically nonexistent.  

She doesn't trust you when she finds out, but you never expected her to. Just as long as she's safe. 

It starts with a cough, a rattle of the chest. It starts with blood on handkerchiefs and 'I'm sick, Delphine'.  You sink, because everything you've done is to protect her but you can't protect her from this. You've seen the videos - you watched Jennifer die, and you don't think you could stand seeing subject 324B21 on a slab down in the morgue. You don't think you could distance the subject, the experiment, from Cosima. She's so full of life that you can't imagine her anything but. The other subjects were like that once. Her DNA is what makes her her, but it's also what's killing her. There's no science that can save her yet. But you can make it. You'll do whatever it takes to invent what she needs. 

It starts with lines of code that are base pairs that are copyright. Her lungs begin to corrode from the inside and something rattles inside you when you realise that you are not in control. DYAD is. They own her, and in some way they own you too, because you would do anything to save her. The translation scrolls across the screen in front of you, and you've never been more glad that you completed your mission. She signed the contract and now they won't punish her. They won't take you away and leave her unprotected. You don't worry about the others the way you worry about Cosima. It's no skin off your back if Alison signs or Sarah punches Rachel. You only care about them because Cosima does and if loving her means loving the others, then you'll try your hardest. You don't completely know how to do it and, to be honest, it makes you feel more than a little bit lost, but mon dieu you'll try. 

It starts with a tooth and not telling Cosima because what is best for her is not knowing. It might not be right, but you gave up the moral high ground decades ago. Blackmailing Scott seems so easy. Keeping secrets, accepting milk teeth from shady coorporations - it's just business as usual. You're a scientist but on some days you feel more like a rat in a maze but it's not you that suffers if you take a wrong turn, it's her. You're Frankenstein's creation now. DYAD directors slip you missions and you do them. You might love her, but first and foremost you are a monitor and the subject must survive. You can even deal with Rachel if it means one more day on that sofa in the lab, watching her smile. Sometimes you look at the monster you're becoming, but if it saves her then it's worth it. That's the mantra that you keep on repeat in your head - for her, for her - because you hate everything that you're doing, you hate who you are now, but you'll carry on until you're the worst person in the world, until she thinks that you're lower than the devil himself. For her. 

It starts with a plane ticket and a threat. It starts with personal. You look at Rachel Duncan and take comfort in the fact that when Cosima says you must love all her sisters, she does not mean this one. 

It starts with hair straighteners and a new wardrobe. You have to be more lioness than woman now. Cosima won't like what you have to tell her but what you're doing is what's best for her so she can blame you all she wants. You just about manage to get the words out by keeping business-like. You can't afford emotions when the stakes are this high. You get rid of your curls, burn the fluffy jumpers. You have to be tough for her now, and tough means no comforts. No Cosima. You step into your new role at DYAD with all the grace and poise and elegance expected of a young woman from a french boarding school. You have to be careful in what you do - Topside are watching. Marion cannot keep the wolves from the door forever and, sure enough, Ferdinand is coming. 

It's hard to love the sisters when they won't listen to you. 

None of them trust you now, but that's okay. You don't need their trust, just their lives. In a way, it's better that they all hate you. DYAD directors who get too personal, who make their own plans, have a nasty habit of disappearing. You can't afford to leave her again because it's getting to the point where you are the only obstacle in the way of those that would hurt the clones and with all the battering from both sides, you don't know how much longer you can do this for. (In your heart you know - you'll do it for as long as she needs you to). 

It starts with Shay. With taking pictures through a bar window. You know how dangerous Castor are, and they cannot have Cosima. Shay is ex-military which is enough to raise suspicions. She's a woman with a dubious bank account and a shady background. You can't stop until you know she won't hurt Cosima. Maybe it give you some small satisfaction, too, the fact that this new woman who appeared so quickly could just be in it for the money. Perhaps you get some small sliver of enjoyment from clicking through the pictures and imagining how you will take Shay down. You'd never admit it though, and you'd never actually make a move unless Cosima gave you the go ahead. You wonder if your phone name is still Eskimo Pie. You wonder if you're still in her phone. You don't lie to yourself. It hurts that Cosima moved on so fast. It hurts that she doesn't trust you anymore. She keeps secrets, lies to your face. You have secrets too, but you've only ever lied to keep her safe. It doesn't give you any moral ground but it does have a kind of honesty to it. 

It starts with threats. You use skills you learnt from Leekie before Donnie killed him. Before his brains blew out in a cascade of red, flowering on the window of a car like Cosima's lungs flower and bloom when she coughs them onto the floor. Your worry blooms too. You make decisions you're not proud of, make deals with people you'd much rather never see again. You find some small amusement in the fact that, out of everybody, Sarah Manning is the one who trusts you most now. It doesn't stop you bulldozing forward, fending off Castor with one hand and Topside with the other, an organisation that the clones seem to have forgotten about. You don't blame them, though. They're not quite as exposed as you. You've been doing your best to shelter them. 

It starts with Helsinki. Anger rises when you realise what Rachel was planning and as you torture a disabled woman in a hospital bed, you wonder what happened to the little girl on Maman's knee all those years ago. Mostly, you're disappointed that you didn't see this coming, that you almost didn't stop the threat to Cosima and that itself is what drives you to press a fingernail into the hole where Rachel Duncan's eye used to be. 

It starts with you being wrong. You blanche as you realise that this woman, the only one who has seen how vicious you truly are and will be able to tell the tale, is innocent. You almost regret telling her the boarding school story. You try to convince yourself that you had to make sure - Shay's background was too coincidental - but you know that you're just kidding yourself. You were jealous. Cosima blames you for everything, and she's right to. But you never did what you did to keep her happy. You didn't keep the secret of Kira's tooth, you didn't give Leekie her blood against her permission, you didn't take over DYAD to keep her happy. You did it to keep her safe. What keeps her happy is that she doesn't know what you've done for her. She must never know. But now Shay will tell her what you've become. 

It starts with a phone call. She's figured out. She's smart that way. She apologises for making you make the hard decisions but to you they weren't choices. If you have to choose between keeping someone safe and alive or telling them everything, there's no decision to make. Honesty is not the best policy in situations like this, because honesty kills. You just wish she'd trusted you more. You wish a lot of things, but seeing her with her family, happy and smiling, makes a few of them go away. And a few of them burn a little more. 

It starts with steps in a garage, which you knew were coming. You've been so busy looking out for her that you forget to protect yourself. Then Nealon told you what was coming and you prepared. There's no saving you, but you can go out with grace and dignity and minimal casualties. That's why you're here, after all. It's quiet, it's secluded, and Cosima will never have to know the extent of it. Even your last words are full of it. She doesn't have to be happy. She doesn't have to love you. She just has to be safe. With you gone, she will be. You can slip away safely, secure in the knowledge that what you did you did for her and nothing can ever change that. You don't need a fanfare. You don't need to be recognised for the sacrifices you've made because from the very first day you faked an argument with your boyfriend you've been in love with her. 

It starts with a shot and ends with a cascade of blood. You wonder what will happen to her.

**Author's Note:**

> so yeah i'd be really interested if anyone wants to share their delphine thoughts with me because delphine
> 
> there is an au coming i promise. i'm just a terrible person


End file.
